More and more people with an iPhone 16 Pro are reporting that an important aspect of the device is not working. Here’s what you need to know.
Essential aspect iPhone 16 Pro not working
More and more people with an iPhone 16 Pro (Max) report problems with the touchscreen of the device. Users experience that taps and swipes are ignored, with all the consequences. For example, there are problems with scrolling, pressing buttons and typing on the virtual keyboard.
The problem seems to arise because the algorithm for rejecting accidental touches in iOS is set too sensitively. As a result, even intended touches are ignored.
Touch rejection
Apparently, users are unintentionally causing the system, called ‘Touch rejection’, to reject touches. They do this by unintentionally making contact with other parts of the screen. Some users are reporting on Reddit mainly problems when resting a finger near the new camera control on the screen, but it seems to occur on all screen edges.
When this happens, the iPhone’s software often ignores all new touches on the screen for a short period of time. As a result, the intended taps and swipes are missed by the system. This behavior is clearly demonstrated by Khaos Tian in a post on Mastodonwhich you can view below.
Probably a software problem
The iPhone 16 Pro’s thinner bezels only make the problem worse, though. Those bezels make it easier to accidentally touch the screen. And it only takes a tiny bit of skin to trigger the Touch Rejection system, making it very possible for this to go unnoticed.
The problem occurs when you hold the iPhone naturally, with your fingers around the sides. The problem also occurs more when you use the iPhone without a case, because it is then even easier for your fingers to accidentally touch the screen.
iPhones running both iOS 18 and iOS 18.1 beta are affected by the issue. We expect that Apple can simply fix the problem with a software update. The issue does not appear to occur when the device is locked. It only occurs when the phone is unlocked, which also suggests that the issue is software related.
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